Underdog roboticistshttp://www.hcn.org/issues/47.11/underdog-roboticists
Review of ‘Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream’ by Joshua Davis.Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and The Battle for the American DreamJoshua Davis240 pages, softcover: $14.Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.

In 2004, four low-income Mexican-American high school students from Phoenix built an ingenious robot for a science competition that pitted them against teams from top colleges, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The story sounds almost too “Hollywood” to be true, and in fact, it has already inspired a documentary and a feature film. But seasoned journalist Joshua Davis sticks to the facts in his original book, Spare Parts, carefully reconstructing how these ESL students, “caught in the tractor-beam pull of poverty and low expectations,” became one of the top underwater robot teams in the country.

Davis opens with officials from the NASA and Navy-sponsored Marine Advanced Technology Education Robotics Competition grilling the team members. “These kids had shown up with a garishly painted plastic robot that was partially assembled from scrap parts,” Davis writes. “They called their creation Stinky because it smelled so bad when they glued it together.” And yet “Stinky” manages to outperform the sophisticated work of MIT’s best underwater robotics team.

Davis then draws back to tell us about the robot’s creators, illustrating just how improbable it was that these teenagers ever managed to enter this competition. All four were brought to America from Mexico by their parents as children, and only one of them held a green card. Oscar Vasquez excelled in ROTC until he realized that his undocumented status would get in the way of a military career, while Cristian Arcega is a tinkerer with a sharp engineering mind. Lorenzo Santillian joins the robotics team as a way to escape a gang, and Luis Arranda is a taciturn hulk. They are fortunate in their teachers, Iranian immigrant Fredi Lajvardi and former Navy electronics technician Allan Cameron, who encourage their quest.

These Mexican-American students from Phoenix, who won an underwater robotics contest in 2004, against MIT, are the subjects of the book Spare Parts.

Livia Corona

Davis’ prose is straightforward, but he’s skillful at creating atmosphere and building suspense. You’ll find yourself whipping through the pages to learn what happened — especially how the kids’ lives turned out after the contest.

Davis describes how Lisa Spence, one of the contest judges, felt when she first met the four boys: “As a NASA employee, she had become accustomed to working with engineers who conformed to a sort of industry standard: white, well educated, conservative clothes. These four teenagers standing in front of her signaled that the future looked different.” One can only hope that this book leads people to question the wisdom of deporting American-raised children of immigrants — especially high-achieving engineering whizzes like these.

]]>No publisherBooksEducationArizonaImmigration2015/06/22 04:10:00 GMT-6ArticleSouthwest rain, Endangered Species Act, school-to-prison pipeline and more. http://www.hcn.org/issues/47.10/southwest-rains-endangered-species-act-changes-school-to-prison-pipeline-and-more
Hcn.org news in brief.THE ROLE OF STATES IN THE ESAThis month, the Obama administration proposed increasing the role states play in Endangered Species Act listings, hoping to deter or pre-empt moves from congressional Republicans to overhaul the act and reduce protections for species such as the greater sage grouse and lesser prairie chicken. Under the proposed changes, people wanting to petition the federal government to list a species would first have to send petitions to state agencies that manage that species. The state would then have 30 days to respond with data, such as population counts or comments, which would then be included with the federal petition. Today, petitioners don’t need to provide any data, and state input comes later in the process. The proposal also would seek to make the listing process more transparent. -Elizabeth Shogren

Lesser prairie chicken in Chaves County, New Mexico, a species that could be booted off the endangered species list if changes proposed by congressional Republicans go through.

Jacob S. Spendelow/www.tringa.org

$157,000The amount Utah-based American Lands Council — whose focus is taking back federal lands for states — collected in membership dues in 2013.

$134,000The amount of those dues that came from taxpayer-funded county commissions.

Since 2012, the American Lands Council has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to advocate and lobby for the transfer of federal lands to states. And much of that money has come from county memberships — that is, taxpayer-funded dues. “ALC comes in and offers counties this incredible-sounding deal: ‘We’ll get you these lands with minerals and timber and resources,’ ” Jessica Goad, advocacy director for conservation group Center for Western Priorities, said. “But when you pull back the curtain a bit, (the ALC) is selling an idea that is actually a waste of their time and (their) limited funds.” -Kindra McQuillan

A LITTLE DROUGHT RELIEF FOR THE SOUTHWESTA rainy May drenched the Southwest this spring, on the heels of a parched winter. That deluge, depicted in the map below, is helping to keep wildfire risk at normal levels. It’s also boosting a meager water supply. But without a substantial winter snowpack, lingering effects from the longstanding drought in the region won’t disappear. For example, Lake Powell and Lake Mead are still facing dismal inflows and reservoir levels on the Rio Grande remain low. -Cally Carswell

Click to view larger.

$950Amount, in millions, offered to the Lax Kw’alaam First Nation by a Malaysian energy company to put a natural gas export terminal on tribal ancestral lands in Northern British Columbia. The tribe declined because of the possible threat to its salmon fishery, even though it would have meant $260,000 for each member. -Sarah Tory

BUG LIFEFormer HCN intern Marian Lyman Kirst has created an online photography collection, “Bugonthumb,” which she calls a “celebration of insects and arachnids, those winged and legged wisps that run the world and rule my mind.”

Mormon Cricket.

Marian Lyman Kirst

TRENDING: PRISON PIPELINEA new study finds that Native American students in Utah are disciplined far more harshly than their peers. They’re almost eight times more likely to be referred to law enforcement and more than six times more likely to be arrested than white students — a phenomenon known in education circles as the “school-to-prison pipeline.” The harshest discipline takes place in schools closest to the state’s eight reservations. -Kate Schimel

Lea Tuttle: “You’re not going to teach anyone anything by punishing them for petty things! All this is doing is hurting them — the cycle continues. These schools are still to this day discriminating against Natives.”

W. Fred Sanders:“There are obviously large social and economic problems resulting from history and the isolation on reservations. Many of these problems are not effectively different from those faced by all rural communities in the West.”

]]>No publisherNot on homepageEndangered SpeciesPoliticsDroughtWildlifeTribesNatural GasEducation2015/06/08 03:00:00 GMT-6ArticleAmerican Indian students in Utah face harsh disciplinehttp://www.hcn.org/articles/american-indian-students-in-utah-face-harsh-discipline
Research finds they are referred to law enforcement and arrested more than any other group.One day in 2014, in Utah’s San Juan School District, two middle school boys went looking for their teacher. The district serves the largest number of Native American students in the state and both boys identified as such. In pursuit of their teacher, they checked out the teachers’ lounge, and, in that room full of adult secrets, they began to poke around. In the fridge they found a couple bottles of Dr. Pepper. They grabbed them and drank them.

Unsurprisingly, they were caught.

But what might have been dismissed as a youthful infraction instead took a serious turn: both boys were referred to law enforcement for theft.

Their story, which comes from a report released by the University of Utah Friday, is not unusual. The study, conducted by researchers at the university’s S.J. Quinney College of Law Public Policy Clinic, found that Native American students in Utah are disciplined far more harshly than their peers. They’re almost eight times more likely to be referred to law enforcement and six times more likely to be arrested than white students, far out of proportion to the size of the population.

The result is a phenomenon known in education circles as the “school-to-prison pipeline,” whereby zero tolerance disciplinary policies that disproportionately target minority students funnel them out of school and into juvenile justice programs.

“A lot of these policies have the best intentions,” Vanessa Walsh, the report’s primary author, said. “We have to keep our schools safe. But it's having consequences that I don't think anyone anticipated.”

The next stop for many students is often the adult prison system, which can have devastating impacts on already-vulnerable youth and their communities, she said. (In the case of the soda-drinking boys, the school district doesn’t track what happens once students are handed to police, but they could have been charged with a crime, arrested, fined or forced to appear in court.)

A Native American student works at a computer at Monument Valley High School, in Utah. Native American students are disproportionately arrested, thanks to Utah's zero tolerance policies.

(AP Photo/The Salt Lake Tribune, Rick Egan)

The U.S. education system has an especially tortured relationship with Native American students. Until just a few decades ago, many American Indian students left or were taken from their families to be educated in boarding schools, as part of the government’s forced assimilation policy. The schools had a reputation for strict and often abusive disciplinary policies that are still remembered vividly by those who attended.

In recent years, states and the federal government have tried to do better, including incorporating tribal languages and culture into public schools and relinquishing more control to tribes. Still, changes to school discipline have been slow to follow. Nationwide, Native American students receive the second highest rate of out-of-school suspension of any ethnic group and are disproportionately expelled.

According to Walsh’s report, the harshest discipline for Utah’s American Indian students today takes place in rural areas and in the schools closest to the state’s eight reservations. For example, in the San Juan School District, where the two boys were caught stealing soda, more than 10 percent of American Indian students have been referred to law enforcement, compared with less than 2 percent of white students. One high school in the district referred almost a third of its American Indian students.

Other Western states face similar disparities and are grappling with how to respond. In 2007, a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union forced one South Dakota school district to reform its policies to protect Native American students. In Colorado, American Indian students are nearly three times more likely to be referred to law enforcement than their white peers, according to a report released last summer. In Montana, Native American students are almost five times as likely to be expelled as white students.

As for Utah, Walsh has reported her findings to the ACLU and met with state officials and representatives to discuss the issue. So far, she said, she hasn’t been able to get support for a legislative task force or policy changes.

“It's hard to get policymakers to take this on and champion this,” she said. But she doesn’t intend to let it rest. “I have to just keep knocking on their door, sending them an email every couple weeks.”

Kate Schimel is an editorial intern at High Country News.

]]>No publisherTribesUtahMontanaColoradoEducation2015/05/22 06:00:00 GMT-6Article'Real hunger' creating demand for environmental philosophyhttp://www.hcn.org/issues/47.1/philosophy-ed
Descriptions of the West's top programs.In response to escalating environmental crises such as climate change and forest decline, many colleges and universities across the West are developing a variety of on-the-ground action-oriented degrees. Students who seek to shape future landscapes, cities and infrastructure can take advantage of an array of programs that range from land management to environmental policy, sustainable business to wildlife biology. Yet a growing number of environmentally -minded-- students are gravitating toward one of academia’s oldest fields: philosophy.

Courses in environmental philosophy and ethics push college students to ask the broadest and most basic questions about the underlying social causes of current crises. What deep-seated values in our society discourage the acknowledgment of ecological limits? What ethical frameworks might lead us toward a more sustainable future?

“Among young people, there is a real hunger for dealing with these kinds of questions,” says Philip Cafaro, professor of philosophy at Colorado State University. “The baby boomers were about having everything. They were looking for win-win solutions. They found lots of successes, of course, but an ecologically sustainable society has not been one of them.”

Can environmental philosophy and ethics programs spur younger generations to build a sustainable society? Students, faculty and universities seem to think so. Colorado State University is just one of dozens in the West now offering degrees and certificates in environmental philosophy at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Many more colleges and universities offer at least some environmental ethics coursework within their philosophy or environmental studies departments.

Environmental ethics courses are filling up more quickly than ever before, and not just with philosophy geeks. Students from a variety of fields, including biology and geoscience, are enrolling in increasing numbers. “Students are realizing that to only understand hydrological processes is useless without also understanding the broader social and ethical issues that have produced them,” says Lisa Floyd-Hanna, professor of environmental studies at Prescott College.

The following list highlights some of the West’s most robust environmental philosophy programs. Though far from comprehensive, it reveals the wide array of philosophical offerings now available to students regardless of major. Perhaps we’ll all sleep a little better at night knowing a more ethically minded workforce is on its way.

ARIZONAIn order to prepare future scientists to conduct research and inform policy in an ethical manner, Arizona State University’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences (newcollege.asu.edu/mns/degrees/naturalsci) has designed a BS in environmental sciences which requires all students to enroll in environmental ethics and policy courses. The program prioritizes the “connectedness of disciplines” while encouraging students to take advantage of top-tier research facilities. Another perk? With the help of the Western Undergraduate Exchange (www.wiche.edu/wue), students from most Western states can attend for reduced tuition.

With an academic culture deeply rooted in both interdisciplinary and environmental studies, Prescott College (prescott.edu) offers fertile ground for would-be environmental philosophers. Courses include “Religious Ethics and Environmental Activism” and “The Idea of Nature.” Students can enroll in the more traditional full-residency environmental studies program at the undergraduate level or can instead earn their self-directed undergraduate or graduate degrees through the school’s unique limited-residency program. Why contemplate the future of nature and humanity in a fluorescent-lit classroom when you could do it while climbing a mountain, paddling a river or actively helping communities become more sustainable?

The 2011 Prescott College winter wilderness orientation in the Grand Canyon.

Courtesy Prescott College Archive

CALIFORNIAThough Santa Clara University does not offer a degree in environmental philosophy, it does provide a wealth of resources for its undergraduate students through the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics (www.scu.edu/ethics/). The Center offers an environmental ethics fellowship to fund student projects that address the ethical implications of particular environmental challenges. Past projects have questioned the philosophical underpinnings of sustainability, solar power accessibility and agriculture, among other issues. The center also publishes articles, blogs and podcasts that address urgent challenges in applied ethics, including a 12-part short course on environmental ethics available for free online.

Students enrolled in The Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California Santa Barbara can earn an interdisciplinary doctorate or master’s in environmental science and management (MESM). Students interested in ethics benefit from the program’s affiliation with the campus-based Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, and Public Life, which organizes internships and lectures. Other resources include the UC Center for the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology and the Center for Energy and Environmental Economics.

COLORADOColorado State University’s Department of Philosophy (philosophy.colostate.edu) offers one of the West’s oldest and most robust environmental philosophy programs. Undergraduate and graduate students can select from courses including bioethics and society, ethics of sustainability, and philosophy of natural sciences. Despite the abundance of offerings, student interest outpaces available seating: “I am dealing with emails from a dozen students right now who are trying to get into a course that is already full,” says environmental philosophy professor Philip Cafaro. With its campus located in Fort Collins within sight of Rocky Mountain National Park, students are encouraged to engage with the land as well as the academic community. After reveling in the high country, they can “contextualize their euphoria” with full-time faculty member Katie McShane, whose past research includes finding the most effective ways to articulate a sense of wonder within larger environmental policy discussions.

Also at the base of the Rocky Mountains, the University of Colorado Boulder offers multiple opportunities for students interested in environmental philosophy. The Philosophy Department, a leader in the field of applied ethics, offers a graduate certificate in environment, policy and society. Meanwhile, the Environmental Studies Department (colorado.edu/envs) provides students with master’s or doctorate programs with an ethics-heavy “theory and values” concentration. No matter which program they choose, students stand to benefit from the close ties between the departments. The university also hosts the Center for Values and Social Policy (colorado.edu/philosophy/center), which supports research, organizes conferences and sponsors lectures on the relevant applications of ethics.

CSU philosophy professor Philip Cafaro takes graduate students on a hike in the Red Feather Lakes area of the Roosevelt National Forest.

Courtesy Philip Cafaro

IDAHOScholars at the University of Idaho can earn a master’s in environmental philosophy through the Philosophy Department (uidaho.edu/class/philosophy). Since 2013, the program has been home to a student-published ethics journal titled The Hemlock Papers. Students can also present their research at the annual Inland Northwest Philosophy Conference, organized this year by Boise State University and Washington State University.

MONTANAIt doesn’t take long at the University of Montana to abandon the stereotype of philosophy students hiding out in the library. Missoula prides itself in being the closest urban center to any wilderness area in the United States — only a short drive to the largest contiguous wilderness area in the Lower 48. Don’t want to take that much time away from your studies? Mountain bike trails leave directly from campus. The Philosophy Department (cas.umt.edu/phil) offers a master’s in environmental philosophy along with coursework for undergraduates. The program requires students to carry out a three-credit internship with a local nonprofit. (Fortunately, Missoula boasts one of the highest per capita rates of nonprofits in the country.) The Environmental Studies Department (cas.umt.edu/evst) also offers a number of ethically oriented courses, including “Ethical Issues of Ecological Restoration” and “Greening of Religion.”

Students do research on grazed land as part of a class on “Ethical Issues in Restoration Monitoring” at the University of Montana.

Courtesy Daniel Spencer

OREGONThe University of Oregon prides itself on one of the strongest interdisciplinary environmental studies programs in the nation, with over 100 faculty members across a wide number of departments, so it is not surprising that it also possesses one of the strongest environmental philosophy programs as well. Doctoral candidates in the environmental sciences, studies and policy program (envs.uoregon.edu/graduate/doctoral) can choose philosophy as their focal department. The two departments also collaborate to produce the journal Environmental Philosophy, one of the premier peer-reviewed journals in the field. Coursework features historically marginalized ethical perspectives including deep ecology, ecofeminism and indigenous philosophy. The program also manages the environmental leadership program, which places its students in local nonprofits, businesses and governmental agencies.

Oregon State University’s Department of Philosophy offers a master’s in applied ethics with an emphasis in environmental philosophy. The program requires students to actively analyze and engage with ethical issues in the field, providing opportunities to do so through the Phronesis Lab for ethics research. For students with a more literary bent, the university also hosts the Spring Creek Project for Nature and the Written Word.

One of the only universities in the nation to offer a bachelor’s in environmental ethics and policy, the University of Portland (college.up.edu/envscience) uses a Catholic theological framework that emphasizes social justice to address the underlying ethics of its academic offerings. Located in the famously progressive city of Portland, the university offers access to a wide variety of environmental nonprofit organizations. Steven Kolmes, chair of the Environmental Studies Department, says that students flock to environmental ethics courses, including next semester’s “Ethics in Sustainable Food.”

University of Oregon students gather stories to promote stewardship of the McKenzie River, Eugene’s only water source.

Courtesy Aylie Baker

UTAHStudents seeking a master’s of arts or science or a doctorate- in philosophy and applied ethics can find plenty of opportunities at the University of Utah (philosophy.utah.edu/graduate). The program works closely with the College of Business, College of Law and School of Medicine to allow its students to pursue multiple degrees concurrently. It also offers a joint program with the Institute of Human Genetics, located on campus. With 19 full-time faculty (not all of them specializing in environmental ethics), the department boasts small class sizes and close interaction with instructors.

WYOMINGIn order to serve undergraduates who are not majoring in philosophy but still want a strong foundation in environmental ethics, the University of Wyoming has created an environmental values minor. Faculty in the Philosophy Department (uwyo.edu/philosophy) see it as a way to provide “a vital link” between the humanities and the natural and social sciences. Coursework explores the “aesthetics, culture, ethics, and policy” associated with current environmentalism. The school’s location in Laramie, population 30,000, allows students plenty of extracurricular opportunity to contemplate the aesthetics of the nearby Laramie Mountains.

Philosophy students from the University of Wyoming gather at Table in the Wilderness camp near Centennial, Wyoming, to study stoicism for the annual Stoic Camp. While the camp is not a lesson in environmental ethics, students get the opportunity to explore the outdoors while considering the relationship between themselves and nature.

Courtesy Department of Philosophy, University of Wyoming

BEYOND THE WEST

At the University of Victoria’s School of Environmental Studies (uvic.ca/socialsciences/environmental), located in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia, students seeking their bachelor’s, master’s or doctorate can choose from three interdisciplinary research areas: ethnoecology, ecological restoration or political ecology. Undergraduates can also minor in the human dimensions of climate change or conduct research through the intergovernmental Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, which is hosted by the university.

The University of Alaska Anchorage’s Philosophy Department (uaa.alaska.edu/philosophy) has created a certificate in applied ethics for undergraduates interested in entering any number of professional career tracks while seeking working knowledge in ethics. Though the certificate program is not devoted solely to environmental concerns, in the course of their studies students can enroll in upper-level environmental ethics courses for engineering, business and law. With the long winter nights and sub-zero temperatures — and a campus shared by dozens of moose — students might be glad to spend hours contemplating the big questions inside the comforts of the gorgeous UAA/APU Consortium Library.

Even though the University of North Texas is located a few degrees east of the 100th meridian, its environmental philosophy offerings deserve a place in this list. The Department of Philosophy and Religion is home to the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Ethics as well as to the Center for Environmental Philosophy (cep.unt.edu), a nonprofit that provides a number of online resources for anyone interested in the field. Graduate students can earn a master’s or doctorate in philosophy with a concentration in environmental ethics.

On a hike during the annual International Society for Environmental Ethics meeting philosophers experience the wind and the earth like low-laying alpine plants.

Courtesy International Society for Environmental Ethics

The International Society for Environmental Ethics (enviroethics.org) also provides online resources for students, faculty and the general public. Since 1990, the organization has facilitated discussions between environmental philosophers around the world. It also manages an online bibliography with over 16,000 entries.

Ready to tackle the big questions yourself? The Center for Humans and Nature (humansandnature.org) has created an online forum for scholars and armchair philosophers alike. Three times a year, the center poses a new “Question for a Resilient Future,” in order to spark constructive public dialogue. -Recent questions include: How far should we go to bring back lost species? Does hunting make us human? And what does the Earth ask from us?

John Nolt, from the University of Tennessee, and Umberto Sconfienza, from Tilburg University, listen to a talk at the annual International Society for Environmental Ethics meeting.

Courtesy International Society for Environmental Ethics

There are many other environmental philosophy programs out there — too many to list. If you know of one that merits attention, Tweet to @highcountrynews

]]>No publisherThe FutureEducationPhilosophyPeople & Places2015/01/19 04:00:00 GMT-6ArticleWhat 4-H teaches 7 million kids about foodhttp://www.hcn.org/articles/what-4-h-teaches-7-million-kids-about-food
A new book explores what the century-old organization looks like today.In a new book, Raise: What 4-H Teaches 7 Million Kids & How Its Lessons Could Change Food & Farming Forever, Mother Jones senior editor Kiera Butler writes about the century-old organization that teaches kids—via local chapters across the country—how to raise livestock and grow food. While writing the book, she learned about the origins of 4-H, the agribusinesses funding much of its curricula today, and how agriculture education is changing. Butler has never participated in 4-H herself, but first became interested in the program when she wandered over to the livestock barn at the Alameda County Fair in Northern California, and saw “nine-year-old girls leading around giant, hulking cows and kicking ass in the showroom.” High Country News recently spoke with Butler about the book.

High Country News: Will you explain how 4-H was established and how land grant universities (institutions that received federal funds through the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890) played a role?

Kiera Butler: 1902 or 1903 are the years that people trace it back to. People at land grant universities were developing new ways of farming, using specially branded seeds and tractors and industrializing. Farmers were wary of these new methods. So, as a way to reach the farmers and gain their trust, the universities started clubs for kids. They (would) encourage kids to grow two plots of corn — one plot with the old kind of seed and the another with selective breeding. The parents would see how well the kids’ plots were doing, and they would emulate those methods for themselves. It’s a very clever way of getting ag science into the general farming public.

HCN You write about how companies like Monsanto and DuPont play a role in shaping what 4-H kids are learning. Where’s the influence of these companies in 4-H today?

KB 4-H is housed in the U.S. Department of Agriculture but there’s a fundraising non-profit arm, the National 4-H Council, which, in the last five to 10 years, has stepped up is courting of corporate donors. So Monsanto, Cargill, DuPont and other big (agricultural) companies have contributed in various ways. It’s anything from DuPont-sponsored biotech curriculum, to volunteer programs where company employees might volunteer with a local 4-H chapter for a day.

Agendas of agribusinesses occasionally make their way into 4-H curriculum. In the biotech curriculum sponsored by DuPont, there are copious links back to the DuPont webpage. There’s one about chocolate milk because what makes your Nesquik dissolve into milk is soy lecithin — a product produced by DuPont. So the lesson is like: “Learn about soy lecithin, and also, enjoy chocolate milk.” The influence is definitely there and pretty obvious.

HCN You spent a lot of time with 4-H families to research this book. Did they have opinions about these companies funding 4-H curricula?

KB What 4-H looks like depends on the community that a particular club (is in). It’s not like the National 4-H Council telling them exactly what they have to learn. There’s curricula that National 4-H Council publishes and people use them. But I think that probably if you looked at 4-H clubs where the hogs are raised in the middle of the country, you’d probably see different hog-raising practices than you’d see here in California.

HCN I’ve read that Wal-Mart is also a funder of 4-H curricula. Is that true, and if so, what impact does that have on the organization?

KB I’d have to check that, but I think they have funded 4-H in the past, if not currently. A lot of companies think of this as an investment in future employees. They see this massive youth development program promising to train a whole work force in science and tech skills. And if the companies can influence what seven million kids are learning, the values that they’re being taught, that’s an excellent opportunity from the company’s perspective.

I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. But if they’re learning about how great soy lecithin is and forming positive associations with this particular biotechnology, for better or for worse, they’re going to bring those values with them as they go through school and enter the workforce.

HCN In the book, you discuss sustainability, and you quote a 4-Her saying that, “No one is willing to admit that the fundamental purpose in teaching kids to raise animals, and to produce animals for market and a sustainable community, got lost somewhere.” Will you explain this?

KB In order to achieve what some people have described as “Arnold Schwarzenegger pigs,” there’s a lot of pressure for these kids to use things like ractopamine, and other feed additives that have hilarious names like Sumo and Explode. First of all, it can be bad for the animals’ health. But also, the meat doesn’t taste very good. So, I think that Sally was saying in that quote that the original goal of making an animal that tastes good and is responsibly raised has been lost in this contest to make the biggest, prettiest pig.

HCN Has that followed what’s going on in mainstream America in terms of growing foods for size and transportability, but without much flavor?

KB In some ways, judging trends for livestock shows follow culinary trends. It used to be that judges were looking for pigs that were all muscle and had very little fat, which was back in the ‘90s low fat craze era. But now that bacon is having this incredible moment, judges favor pigs that have big bellies.

HCN How will 4-H look in the future; what’s changing for the organization?

KB I see in California a lot more interest in sustainable livestock raising. I’ve heard so many people express the desire to have a (new) category at fair, with organically raised or consumer satisfaction in mind. There’s also a big push to do a lot of science, technology, engineering and math; making robots or learning about GPS.

And the international stuff is also interesting. (4-H is now becoming widespread in Ghana.) It remains to be seen whether these 4-H clubs will really take off in Africa in a big way. Agriculture in general in Africa is changing so fast, so it will be interesting got see whether 4-H shapes it the way it shaped agriculture here in the United States.

---

Tay Wiles is the online editor of High Country News. She tweets @taywiles. Photographs of California 4-Hers by Rafael Roy.

]]>No publisherAgricultureYouthFoodRanchingEducationBooks2014/12/01 07:00:00 GMT-6ArticleVoting down science education, world’s toughest boss, and bending over backwards for healthcare.http://www.hcn.org/issues/46.7/voting-down-science-education-worlds-toughest-boss-and-bending-over-backwards-for-healthcare
Mishaps and mayhem from around the West.THE NATIONWhat if you went to your family doctor complaining about that nasty rundown blah sort of feeling and were advised to experience the joys of nature rather than those of pharmaceuticals? In a nutshell: Take two aspen and call me in the morning. Daphne Miller says it's not a joke: Nature in general is actually a smart prescription. As Miller, a physician and associate professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of California-San Francisco, writes in NationalParks magazine: "Hundreds of studies have documented the effect of green space on health outcomes." Miller is so convinced of the benefits of fresh air that she'd like her fellow docs to add "woodland therapy" to their office regimen. Along with checking temperature, pulse and blood pressure, she says, doctors should also check how often we've taken a walk in the woods, "skipped a stone, smelled a flower, chased a butterfly, or watched a sunset." Getting people off their couches and out onto trails will not only stave off chronic illnesses, she says, but also save millions in health-care costs. There's just one obstacle, however, especially for doctors who don't want to be hypocrites: "About 50 percent of U.S. doctors and nurses are overweight, and 40 percent never exercise." Oh, well, it's not the first time we've been told: "Do what I say, not what I do."

THE WESTState legislatures do the darnedest things, and sometimes it's hard to decide what's the most fascinating. In Wyoming, for example, the

Legislature voted its disapproval of recommended new science standards that accept global climate change as real. Not because the standards were inaccurate, but because they "would be bad for Wyoming's energy-based economy," reports the Jackson Hole News&Guide. Legislators also criticized the teaching of evolution, a position the paper summed up in its headline: "Darwin's theory voted out." In Idaho, meanwhile, a popular House bill allowed guns on college campuses, though a few residents doubted that this was a fine idea. Greg Hampikian, a biology professor at Boise State University, asked bluntly: "When may I shoot a student?" For years, he explained, he has had encounters with disgruntled students, but "I always assumed that when they reached into their backpacks they were going for a pencil. Since I carry a pen to lecture, I did not feel outgunned, and because there are no working sharpeners in the lecture hall, the most they could get off is a single point. But now that we'll all be packing heat, I would like legal instruction on the rules of classroom engagement." And in Arizona, writer Deanne Stillman, in Truthdig.com, couldn't resist sending an open letter urging the state Legislature to resist any criticism about "going too far." She suggests mandatory English-only texting "while driving," and "mandatory text, drive and open-carry (so) we can continue phasing out schools while protecting ourselves with fully loaded Glocks." That's not all: She urges legislators to turn parks into open-pit mines, set an open season on shooting giant saguaros, and finally, settle the knotty problem of when human conception begins by defining it as "the time of the first babysitting job."

WESTERN COLORADOCrawford, Colo., population about 300, can boast that it employs a town clerk who voluntarily asked for her salary to be cut from $15 an hour to $12 an hour. "This may be the weirdest thing you've ever heard," said the clerk, Jackie Savage. But she explained that if she earns too much, her husband loses his subsidized insurance under President Obama's Affordable Care Act, reports the North Fork Merchant Herald. And in nearby Paonia, population 1,500, a woman leaving one of the town's 20 churches asked a neighbor if he'd noticed "all the violets downtown." Taken aback, he replied, "Violence? Here? What's happening to the world today?

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Writebetsym@hcn.org.

]]>No publisherCommunitiesEducationUtahColoradoHeard Around the West2014/04/28 04:10:00 GMT-6ArticleCutting class: Alaskan villages struggle to keep schools openhttp://www.hcn.org/issues/45.18/cutting-class-alaskan-villages-struggle-to-keep-schools-open
In 15 years, 32 schools have closed because they have fewer than 10 students.Southeast Alaska's Tenakee Springs is a small village on a big island, hardly more than a fishing camp surrounded by a wilderness of forest and sea. There's no cell phone service, no paved roads and – on a good day – maybe 100 residents. Jobs are scarce.

But Darius Mannino and his wife, Chris, fell in love with the place while on a kayaking trip in 1996 and stayed in the area for eight years. "It became the home of our hearts," Darius says. The couple eventually moved to Los Angeles for work, but when they had a daughter in 2010, they decided they wanted her to grow up in Tenakee.

Ila Wren Mannino is now 3, and the family is settled here. They own a bakery, participate in local government and live in a house with plumbing and electricity – a step up from their earlier years in a moss-chinked cabin, when they hauled water and read by oil lamp. But though the Manninos are committed to staying, there's no longer a school here for Ila to attend.

The $3 million building still stands, built in 1987 during a burst of optimism. But this August, the district locked its doors. Besides no preschool through 12th grade education, that means no place to hold town meetings or even community volleyball games in the winter. Seven people – including Darius Mannino, who worked as a teacher's assistant and janitor – lost their jobs. Their hardship sends ripples through a community this small. "It's not cheap to eat here as it is," Darius says. "If (people) have less money, they're less likely to come to the bakery."

The problem isn't unique to Tenakee. By state law, Alaskan schools with fewer than 10 students have their funding ratcheted down over a three-year period until they're eventually forced to close. Each October, the state completes its official headcount to determine which schools will continue to receive money. It's a tense time in small communities; if a single student drops out or one family moves away, everyone could suffer.

In the 15 years since the law was passed, 32 schools have permanently closed their doors. More teeter on the brink: Last year, 41 schools had fewer than 15 students. And with the majority of Alaskan communities accessible only by boat or plane, students who lose their schools can't just get bused to a neighboring town. Many turn to online correspondence courses, which will serve about 11,300 Alaskans this year, while others are sent to regional boarding schools. Some families simply move away.

"Closing a school is one of the death knells to a community," says Brad Allen, a superintendent who had to close the school in Red Devil in interior Alaska's Kuspuk School District three years ago. A school is often a town's largest employer as well as its largest user of electricity and shipper of freight through the local post office. Without its school, there's even been talk of Red Devil's commercial airstrip closing, Allen adds. "There are so many interconnected lines."

Nothing in rural Alaska is cheap, education included. Gas can reach $10 a gallon, and in the tiny village of Stony River, pop. 45, in the Kuspuk District, a 33-ounce box of cereal costs $14. The price of heating a school and paying a teacher a living wage to educate fewer students is largely why education in bush villages is more than twice as expensive as in urban areas. Last year, the five most urban Alaskan school districts received an average of $15,000 per student from local, state and federal sources. In the more rural parts of the state, the figure rose to $31,000. And in the remote Aleutian Islands, schools received more than $52,000 per student – nearly five times the national average.

Yet despite the funding, standardized test data suggest that rural schools still lag behind. Sixty-five percent of students in urban Alaska were rated as proficient in reading in 2011, while only 46 percent of rural students were. Urban students outperformed their rural counterparts by similar margins in writing and math.

Retired Republican State Sen. Gary Wilken, who was deeply involved in the 1998 reform that led to the 10-student mandate, thinks the data underscore a basic truth: Smaller schools simply aren't able to prepare students for college and careers the way larger schools can. They lack extracurricular activities, science labs and advanced instruction in subjects like physics, and teachers are often stretched across a range of grade levels.

Wilken says that online correspondence has proven more effective, both financially and educationally. Despite opposition by Democrats like Georgianna Lincoln – an Alaska Native whose hometown school was shuttered soon after the law went into effect – the bill passed the state House 29-11 and the Senate 11-9.

----

Still, Wilken admits that no one wants to see a school close. "There's heartstrings attached to it," he says. "But I don't think you (should) provide an inferior education just so you can say you have a school."

Elsewhere in the country, minimum enrollment laws are rare. In rural Big Horn County, Mont., Superintendent Al Peterson has kept the Spring Creek School open for as few as three students. The size doesn't matter as much as the teacher's dedication, he says, and in Montana, if a school drops below nine students, it receives a greater portion of its funding from the state.

The Spring Creek School in Decker, Mont., now has six students, and teacher Creighton Teter says that despite the challenge of working in a place where the daily bus route covers 160 miles, the one-on-one interaction with his students is worth it.

"It's the way teaching should be," he says. "I get to know my students and … (tailor) my teaching to what their interests are, so they're having fun and learning and covering the standards in very creative and functional ways." Plus, he notes proudly, his students consistently score higher on standardized tests than those at the district's larger schools.

Though rural Alaska has high rates of poverty and unemployment, life in a subsistence community provides its own kind of education, a unique benefit of keeping rural kids in rural schools.

"When we're in Stony (River), our culture and tradition influence us," says 15-year-old Elizabeth Willis. "It's home. If we were to go off to a city or boarding school, we won't be able to go out and go moose hunting. Our grandmothers and families wouldn't be there to teach us about our culture."

Elizabeth and her five classmates at the Gusty Michael School live on an island in the Kuskokwim River, deep in the Alaskan interior. Their teacher, Debi Rubera, helps run the village's only store to fund field trips for the students, some of whom had never seen the ocean, ridden in a car or eaten at a restaurant. "The difference in the kids once they've seen those things is amazing," Rubera says. Students work at the store after school, then use the profits to fund travel to places like California and Washington, D.C.

This year, however, when low enrollment threatened to close their school, the kids voted to give up their travel money to keep it open. They donated $8,000 upfront, plus $1,000 a month toward utilities. It doesn't fully cover Gusty Michael's operating budget, but it was enough to convince the school board to keep the school open.

The village is optimistic that enrollment will rise in coming years, but if it doesn't, the school could be forced to close, and Elizabeth's family would likely move. Rural Alaska's population has been shrinking steadily since 1990, and the exodus has recently snowballed: Twice as many people left rural villages between 2000 and 2008 than in the 1990s. Southeast logging communities and Southwest fishing villages have been hit especially hard, but with fuel costs high and jobs scarce in rural districts statewide, demographers expect the trend to continue.

Many families head for the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, on the outskirts of Anchorage. The school district there has gained 4,000 students in the last decade – the equivalent of one new school per year – and is the only district in Alaska that's growing steadily. Superintendent Deena Paramo estimates that of the 350 new students who enrolled this year alone, roughly a third emigrated from rural villages. Many struggle with the cultural transition of leaving their homes and moving to a large school in an urban setting, but Paramo agrees that the 10-student mandate is necessary: "There have to be forced choices for the greater good of Alaska."

In Tenakee Springs, Darius Mannino watches from the window of his bakery as the days grow shorter and, one by one, summer residents leave town. The harbor is nearly empty of boats, the gardens have been covered with seaweed and the bushes stripped of berries. The next eight months will be telling: If Tenakee can boost enrollment, its school will reopen. If not, it could close permanently.

Mannino and other residents have done everything they can think of to recruit families to town – advertising on Craigslist, seeking school accreditation, creating a foreign exchange program – but convincing young parents to move to an island with no school and an uncertain future is tough. Still, the Manninos are hopeful. Sitting at the kitchen table at night after Ila's gone to sleep, they imagine a couple just like them, stuck in traffic somewhere in Los Angeles, dreaming of life in a place like Tenakee Springs.

"There just haven't been a lot of families who have found their way (here)," Darius says. "It's not for everyone, but someone might want to take a leap like we did."

]]>No publisherCommunitiesEducationAlaska2013/11/04 06:00:00 GMT-6ArticleThe cost of progresshttp://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/the-cost-of-progress
Five extraordinary women tested for seventy-five peculiar toxins.The Environmental Working Group just released a two-year study focusing on the toxins found in five minority women at the forefront of environmental justice battles. Within each community, these women work tirelessly to protect citizens from various forms of pollution. And within each of these women, scientists found significantly higher amounts of toxins than other Americans who have been tested.

Here's a look at the three Westerners in the study:

Suzie Canales of Citizens for Environmental Justice (CEJ) investigates all of Corpus Christi, TX., for the impacts of the energy industry there. The study says CEJ “found the city’s birth defect rate to be 84 percent higher than in other parts of Texas.”

Jean Salone, also of CEJ, chaired a biomonitoring study that found residents of her predominantly African American community “had elevated blood and urine concentrations of benzene, a chemical associated with oil drilling and refining and listed by the U.S. government as a known human carcinogen.” Hillcrest, Salone’s community, borders the Citgo oil refinery. She wonders if her own bout with breast cancer is connected to refinery emissions.

Test highlights:

Tested positive for for 40 to 45 of 75 chemicals chemicals.

Bisphenol A - 77th percentile. Higher than all but 23 percent of Americans tested.

Vivian Chang, former executive director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, in Oakland, CA., says Asian immigrants face “isolation and invisibility to the regulatory agencies,” because nobody speaks their language. She organized the Laotian community of Richmond, CA., “to confront environmental problems caused by the local Chevron oil refinery.”

Test highlights:

Tested positive for for 40 to 45 of 75 chemicals chemicals.

Mercury - 91st percentile. Higher than all but 9 percent of Americans tested.

Polycyclic musks - 84th percentile. Higher than all but 16 percent of people tested.

Also found - Perchlorate, bisphenol A (BPA), lead, perfluorochemicals (PFCs).

In April, researchers from the University of Massachusetts and the University of Southern California released a study stating that low-income and minority neighborhoods are disproportionately affected by industrially-generated toxic air.

I am – by default (because of age) – part of this Millennial generation, and we’ve been called lazy, yes, but we’ve also stood up for the things we believe in. Maybe we’re not as radical as the baby boomers that protested the Vietnam War and nuclear proliferation, but our voices are heard – sometimes.

We were heard in November 2008. While former President Bush was making it "easier for coal companies to dump rock and dirt from mountaintop mining operations into nearby streams and valleys," I was part of a campus coalition at the University of Maryland protesting corporate banks that financed mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia.

Why? I’m not entirely against coal. I’m just against the destruction of the most diverse temperate hardwood forest in the world, and all the water pollution, cultural damage, and landslides that accompany that destruction.

We weren’t the only ones in the nation protesting. Rainforest Action Network had organized 50 groups to stage protests in front of Bank of Americas (BofA) and Citibanks. A couple weeks after the protest, I heard on public radio that BofA decided to begin de-investing in coal companies whose primary method of extraction is blowing up the tops of these mountains.

Holy return from oblivion, Batman! It worked! Well, it’s a start. And thanks to countless community organizers, non-profits, and the Natural Resources Defense Council who coaxed BofA executives to tour key mountaintop removal sites, the fight continues.

The point here is that the power of young people cannot be overlooked in money and politics. And my feeling is that it’s going to have a profound impact this weekend in D.C. where Power Shift ’09 is happening. It’s the convergence of 10,000 young people who are demanding “comprehensive and immediate federal climate action” from our new administration.

The broad scope and message of Power Shift is attracting many different groups. I caught up with a few groups from the West that are attending. They told me the reason they’re going to D.C. is to unite with others that have common dreams and to take home new approaches to combat injustice in their communities.

BLACK MESA WATER COALITION

The Black Mesa Water Coalition (BMWC) from Arizona will show up to Power Shift with a group of 30 Native youth from many nations: Navajo, Hopi, Jemez Pueblo, White Mountain Apache, and Tohono O’odham. The students were chosen, because their mentors thought they represented the future of positive leadership.

Photo courtesy of Black Mesa Water Coalition

“For a lot of them, it’s the first time off the reservation,” says Chelsea Chee, the tribal campus climate challenge coordinator at BMWC. “It’s a great opportunity for them to see and be empowered by the number of youth.”

For the group, which even includes one elementary school student, the large issues that hit home are a campaign to reverse the “Life-of-Mine” permit and, at the same time, a campaign for Navajo green jobs. The "Life-of-Mine" permit was a last-minute Bush administration move to allow Peabody Energy to consolidate two mines into one large complex on Navajo and Hopi reservations.

Some of the college students had been involved with a campus climate challenge, but for many, it’s the first time they’ve been involved in this type of activism. And that’s what many campus and community organizers are looking for.

NEW MEXICO YOUTH ORGANIZED

Environmental responsibility is synonymous with social and economic justice for many of the communities in the West. Juan Reynosa, a field organizer for New Mexico Youth Organized, will be introducing Van Jones, a keynote speaker at Power Shift. Jones’ message of pulling underrepresented people out of poverty with green jobs rings loud bells within Reynosa.

Photo courtesy of Juan Reynosa

The majority of jobs in his hometown, Hobbs, NM, are in the oil and gas industry. One of Reynosa’s main goals now is to create other opportunities so destructive jobs in the dirty energy industry aren’t the only option.

“We’re creating a pathway,” says Reynosa of the impact at Power Shift, “—not just waiting for federal action… We’re all mobilizing across the nation.”

Reynosa has been working with Albuquerque and New Mexico legislatures to promote green jobs bills – ones that would fund training programs and also create incentives for green businesses. And at Power Shift, he’ll be testifying in front of Congress on Monday.

GLOBAL EXCHANGE

Photo courtesyof Nina Rizzo

I talked with Nina Rizzo, the California campus organizer for Global Exchange, just minutes before she boarded her flight from California to D.C. Rizzo counted about 400 students from California that were heading to D.C. – about a quarter of whom were from the Bay area.

Rizzo helped lead the University of California system pass important climate change policy, and her latest focus has been to work with community colleges and California State Universities.

“The reason for that,” she says, “is that I feel that the students at these other schools have less access to resources than myself.”

Recalling how the first Power Shift in 2007 catalyzed many campus organizations nationwide in the past two years, Rizzo, a graduate of UC Berkeley, says she wants to convey to students how this perfect storm of youth activism is so important right now because of the upcoming Copenhagen talks on climate issues.

“I want to inspire the thousands of people in my generation to act on clean and just energy for the long term – to literally change lives.”

As the co-facilitator for the multi-racial caucus at Power Shift, Rizzo will help participants in discussing “how we can use our identity to make the movement stronger.”

POWER SHIFT ‘09

This weekend, thousands of young people will unite in D.C. to learn about the different issues in communities across the nation. They'll participate in hundreds of sessions aimed at topics like: Diversity in the Green Movement, Ecopedagogy, Non Violent Direct Action, Stop a Bulldozer and Hug a Tree for Jesus, Examining Issues of Identity & Climate Change, and Lobbying 101. Then theoretically, they'll take home lessons learned and apply them to community issues.

My only two complaints:

1. It doesn't look like there will be any sessions aimed at water usage in the American West.

2. On the front page of the Power Shift website, a rotating photo of Santigold, one of the musical acts, shows her in a leapord skin coat. Let's just hope that's a FAUX leopard skin coat.

]]>No publisherPoliticsYouthLatinosEducationBlog Post2009/02/26 18:30:00 GMT-6ArticleMo' Money...http://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/Mo-Money..
...mo' solutions?I just took a gander at www.recovery.gov. It’s the website the new administration made so we could keep ourselves informed and hold the government accountable in light of the economic stimulus package.

On the site, there’s a section that estimates the amount of jobs that will either be saved or created in the next two years. In the West, estimates amount to 769,000 jobs. Here’s how it looks state-by-state:

At the same time, California will be warning 20,000 state employees that they might lose their jobs. Well, they might lose them first because the economy sucks, and then get them back once the stimulus package kicks in. Over the next few months, Federal agencies will report how their American Recovery and Reinvestment Act dollars will be spent, and soon after that, the American people will theoretically see the benefits. However, the bulk of the borrowed money won’t be seen until 2010.

The Denver Post reports that legislation signing is rarely done outside of Washington, but Colorado was chosen for its “green image” and to represent the package’s focus on clean-energy jobs. The state is projected to receive $48.3 million for renewable energy, out of $2.84 billion nationwide, which is (coincidentally? purposely?) actually proportionate to the state-to-nation population ratio.

Headwaters News rounded up some articles about how a few of the Western states will benefit from the package. Some potentials (pending application approval) in the West include $803 million to Arizona’s education system, $40 million to protect clean water in Montana, $49 million for rapid transit rail projects in Nevada, and a half-billion to Utah’s education system.

So in the coming weeks, state governments and small businesses will all scramble to get budget proposals out so they get a slice of pie. And for us, the American people, we’ll wait!

On the recovery.gov website, President Obama says, “The size and scale of this plan demand unprecedented efforts to root out waste, inefficiency, and unnecessary spending.” But even with the emphasis on the West’s “green” promises, Obama still signed the package with ten pens. Isn’t that nine too many?

David Oien of Timeless Seeds has an immediate reaction when asked if the soils and agriculture departments at state universities have been helpful to organic farmers: "No!"

"But then again, the average (conventional) wheat farmer would say the same thing," he says. "Institutions are behind the curve. It’s not their job to lead. Their job is research.

"They are very sensitive to politics," he adds. "That’s what happens when you have an institution that has to beg the Legislature for money."

While the Legislature provides some funding, companies such as Dow, Syngenta and Monsanto fund most of the agricultural research that is done at land-grant universities. These companies aren’t interested in alternative farming methods.

"I’ve had letters to my dean asking for my resignation," says Bruce Maxwell, a Montana State University weed ecologist who is currently leading a study comparing organic and conventional grain production. "They (people in the industry) said I had no business promoting organic agriculture. They’re threatened by it. And they should be."

Organic agriculture offers farmers a way out from under the companies that profit from industrial farming methods. So perhaps it’s no surprise that, according to the Santa Cruz-based Organic Farming Research Foundation, only about 450 of the 885,863 available research acres in the land-grant system are devoted to certified organic research. Nor is it surprising that no land-grant colleges offer an undergraduate degree in organic agriculture.

Montana State has done a better job than most, according to Perry Miller, an associate professor there who specializes in diversified cropping systems. In 2005, Miller and his colleagues received a $471,111 USDA grant to study dryland organic crop agriculture, including crop rotation and how to best control weeds. The university has also dedicated five acres of its main research facility in Bozeman to organic production.

"Don’t underestimate that development," says Miller. "The department took that five acres away from someone else and gave to us. That’s a good sign." MSU currently offers no classes focusing on organic or alternative agriculture, however.

"We need those classes," says Robert Boettcher, a longtime organic farmer from Big Sandy. "There’s a lot of misinformation out there on organic agriculture. They think it’s a bunch of hippies, part of the 1960s. It isn’t that anymore. We can talk ’til we’re blue in the face, but doing it at a land grant (university) gives us credibility."

Ultimately, it may be the students who decide whether organics become a part of the university curriculum. "One of the few areas we’re seeing intense student interest is in sustainable and organic agriculture," says Miller. "We need to serve those students."

]]>No publisherEnergy & IndustryEducation2005/12/26 01:00:00 GMT-6ArticleWhat's at stake in the evolution debatehttp://www.hcn.org/issues/307/15823
The so-called "debate" over the teaching of evolution is
really a debate over whether our society will continue to be based
on realityOn my desk is the fragment of a tooth from an ancient camel that roamed the area around Fossil, Ore., 40 million years ago. My kids and I unearthed it on a summer camping trip, and today I found myself fingering it as I read yet another story about the evolution "debate."

This controversy pits Darwin’s concept of evolution and natural selection against "intelligent design," which asserts that life is so complex that it must reflect a guiding intelligence. Mindful that the teaching of creationism has been barred by the courts, intelligent design advocates are careful not to name the designer, but their arguments postulate a creation that was perfect and unchanging — in other words, divine.

Across the country and throughout the West, school boards are struggling with this issue, often seeking incoherent "compromises" that satisfy no one. They must certainly confuse students. In Utah, for example, a conservative state senator recently withdrew his plan to require instruction in "divine design," but only after being assured by the state superintendent of public instruction that human evolution would not be taught in Utah schools.

Meanwhile, in a recent sit-down with Texas journalists, President Bush weighed in on the issue: "Both sides ought to be properly taught ... so people can understand what the debate is about." Many may feel: Well, that’s fair enough; give this intelligent design idea equal time, or at least a fair hearing. What’s the problem with that?

The problem is that there simply is no debate in the scientific world about the validity of evolution. After a century and a half of research, there is near-universal agreement among biologists that Darwin’s principle of natural selection, coupled with modern knowledge of genetics, explains the development and workings of life on earth. This consensus is fundamental to modern medicine, to genetics, to embryology, to the classification of plants and animals, and to every other branch of biological science.

Everywhere we look, the living world shows evidence of both past and continuing evolution, from the development of feathers on dinosaurs and birds to the rapid spread of antibiotic resistance among bacteria. In contrast, "intelligent design" makes no testable predictions, and it is not supported by any data at all — certainly nothing as tangible as my fossil camel tooth.

No, the debate over evolution is not really about a scientific idea. It is just one part of a struggle over how Americans understand the world. At issue is this: Will we continue to be a reality-based society, or not?

Placing our understanding of reality in the hands of purveyors of belief — whether they are political ideologues, religious zealots or corporate spin doctors — would mean that we have decided to believe what we choose, rather than rely on factual evidence. Unless compelled by facts, people rarely choose to revise comfortable assumptions or to make sacrifices. America’s conversion into a belief-based society would mark the beginning of an inexorable slide into delusional thinking. Some could argue that this process is already well-advanced.

Before the invasion of Iraq, neoconservative members of the Bush administration disparaged "reality-based" diplomacy as quaint and old-fashioned. An unnamed senior official was quoted as stating: "We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."

The disastrous course of events in Iraq following our "victory" there has proved the folly of allowing belief to pre-empt attention to facts. Any society that believes it is immune to the basic workings of cause and effect is doomed to decline.

Relying on science to understand reality and to predict consequences does not diminish religion. For almost all people the world around, religion fills existence with meaning and provides moral instruction on how to live. Neither evolution, nor the fact that the earth is not the center of the universe, nor any other once "blasphemous" finding of science, threatens religious faith.

Those who condemn science in the name of religion have a terrible record, ranging from Christian clerics in Europe’s Dark Ages, to contemporary Islamic extremists who reject any conclusion that conflicts with their interpretation of the Koran. How could the United States even contemplate surrendering our understanding of the world to purveyors of belief? That surrender will have begun if we allow a trumped-up debate between science and non-science — evolution and intelligent design — a place in our education system. The stakes could not be higher.

Pepper Trail is a Ph.D. biologist who lives and writes in Ashland, Oregon.

]]>No publisherEducationEssays2005/10/03 00:00:00 GMT-6Articleset categorieshttp://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/set-categories
No publisherHuntingRecreationCorruptionMiningImmigrationGunsWaterNational Park ServiceDroughtWildlifeYouthPoliticsTribesRanchingBureau of ReclamationLatinosFoodEducationAgricultureBlog PostArticleA little-known clause can be a killerhttp://www.hcn.org/wotr/15249
The writer wants parents to exercise their rights and
challenge military recruiters in high school Few people know about Section
9528 of the No Child Left Behind Act, but it can be a killer.

Known as the Military Recruitment Clause, it requires
public schools to give information about students to military
recruiters. Schools, of course, are eager to perform this service
to the armed forces since failure to comply carries the risk of
losing federal aid.

Inviting the military into public
schools by itself might not be a problem, but recruiters are
increasingly faced with stepped-up needs for fighters in Iraq and
declining enlistment at home. This causes some recruiters to use
high-pressure sales pitches on teenagers to fulfill their quotas.

As the New York Times put it in an
editorial Jan. 4, "Military recruiters can blitz youngsters with
uninvited phone calls to their homes and on-campus pitches replete
with video war games." Recruiters are also known to target the most
vulnerable young people, minorities and the rural and urban poor
who have fewer choices for jobs or higher education.

Though the law gives parents the right to opt-out of military
contact on behalf of their children, most parents don’t know
much about this or other details of No Child Left Behind, a law
designed to hold schools more accountable to taxpayers. Parents who
do not want their children solicited by the military must put their
opt-out request in writing to ensure that the high school does not
provide a student’s address and phone number.

When
a high school does give notice to parents about their right to
privacy from federal intrusion, that notice is likely to be buried
in obscure language. You might find it in an official student
handbook, coming somewhere after a dozen or so pages detailing
zero-tolerance policies for violence in school, parking regulations
or grading procedures.

Perhaps if parents knew about the
deceptions that are common in recruitment tactics, they would ask
the military not to contact their children. Consider the story of
New Jersey substitute teacher Sue Neiderer, just after her son was
killed in Iraq. She told reporters that the recruiters constantly
pursued her son, promising that he would not be on any front lines
and that the Army would pay off his debts. She recounted that when
her son, Seth, told the recruiter that his mother had questions
about signing up, the recruiter said: "Aren’t you man enough
to sign on the dotted line yourself? Who wears the pants in your
family?"

The U.S. military spends many millions of
dollars annually on recruitment, and much of that targets
high-achieving, low-income youth. Nearly 40 percent of the American
deaths in Iraq are people of color, such as Lori Piestewa, the Hopi
mother of three who became the first woman to die in combat in
Iraq.

She wanted to be the first in her family to go to
college, but not wanting to take advantage of others to make ends
meet, and having been a high-ranking ROTC student in high school,
she signed on the dotted line when asked to do so. Although ROTC
stands for "Reserve Officer Training Corps," she, like most ROTC
students, went to a country where the front lines are everywhere
— even in a mess tent — and where she died in action.

Besides not sufficiently informing parents about their
right to sign a form that would prevent recruiters from calling on
students at home, public schools also tend to violate Section
9528’s requirement for giving students equal access to
alternatives to military service.

Section 9528 is a sad
indication of what is happening in our schools under the guise of
education, but on paper, at least, it gives parents and students
certain rights regarding choice and informed consent. Now is the
time to emphasize those rights, and to make sure young people and
their parents know what military service means.

I served
this country as a Marine, and I know that military service is not
just about the promise of future education, the cool uniform, the
amazing technology of modern warfare, or even about loving
one’s country and wanting to help it. It is ultimately a
question of life and death. A young person fresh out of high school
needs to weigh carefully the crucial decision to go into battle.

Don Trent Jacobs, also known as Wahinkipe
Topa-Four Arrows, is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a
service of High Country News (hcn.org). He
teaches at Northern Arizona University and the Fielding Graduate
Institute, two schools that graduate the highest number of American
Indian students in the country. He lives in Flagstaff,
Arizona.

]]>No publisherEducationMilitaryWriters on the RangeEssaysArticleImaginehttp://www.hcn.org/issues/344/16957
A teacher asks his students and the rest of us to imagine:
What would the world be like if we had the courage to use our
imaginations?Freshmen are staring at a poem. This is a strange and frightening thing. Through the windows, we are painted briefly in changeable light. Late-winter weather swirls up the Columbia Gorge, reminding Portland of its place in this big world. It’s a beautiful moment, somehow poignant. Should be good for poetry.

Yet I know that some of these students are flatlanding — taking the poem literally, misunderstanding its metaphors, not hearing its emotion, wondering why it doesn’t just say what it means. Others are repelled by the strangeness of someone else’s life and mind, the raw inwardness of a lyric poem. “It’s ICKY,” exclaims one of the resistant ones, rolling her eyes.

In the 30 years since I taught my first undergraduates, I have come to accept this reality of the human spirit: To imagine is difficult. It takes courage — encouragement; it takes opportunities carefully constructed (by me or by the fates). Then something magic happens: A key turns in a lock, eyebrows ascend on foreheads — and a new world is glimpsed, a 3-D moment that dazzles. (That’s why one stays in this teaching business.) But there’s no guarantee. What you do is lay it before them ... and wait.

I’m convinced that what teachers are doing, at the level that counts, is not merely delivering knowledge or skills. Secretly, beneath the much-insisted details of biology or poli-sci or poetry, we are awakening the imagination. That big world.

You should see the “Ah!” when a student catches Hopkins’ vision of the god that enkindles even a worn and sullied nature. You should see the tenderness of a suburban kid reliving the epic suffering of a Blackfeet life through a James Welch novel. It’s amazing. A kind of grace.

Imagination is a matter of life and death. It’s not just a liberal-arts nicety. If we move forward in our lives (or fail to) it is mostly according to what we can envision. It’s true for individuals. It’s true for nations, too.

One way to understand our Iraq war, with its terrible costs, is that it happened partly because war-making was the only compelling thing the governing party could imagine doing with the vast wealth and human resources of our nation. If not war, then ... well, just send the money back. “The American people know best what to do with their own money.” Tax cuts. Cuts to health services, to environmental regulation and remediation, to student loans, the poor, even medical research. None of it apparently really worth doing.

The immediate financial cost of this war, through 2007, is about $400 billion. Here’s a thought-exercise: What could we have done with that very same money — had we cared to?

Here in Oregon, our share is about $3.7 billion. With that amount, we could provide health care for 791,185 people (more than a quarter of our small state). Or pay for 64,249 elementary school teachers or 78,277 police officers. Build 387 elementary schools. Hire 61,433 port container inspectors. Neighboring Washington would have enough to take out all four salmon-killing Snake River dams, and redevelop those communities for 10 years to boot! I’m not making this up — I’m cribbing most of it from a Web site you might like to visit: National Priorities Project. Click and see what your state might have had for its money.

Next, imagine a candidate having proposed any of these as national priorities in the 2000 presidential campaign. Snorts of derision and disbelief — we can’t afford that!

Of course we can’t. Unless we decide we can.

Such a vision predicates an imaginative leap: that we are, after all, fundamentally connected to each other — that my fate and happiness are not private matters only, but a shared project. A tax cut takes no imagination to see: It’s a few more bucks in your pocket. But seeing one’s ownership in a community, one’s own face in someone else’s child, that takes imagination. It’s an uphill battle in a culture that celebrates a mythic and bellicose individualism.

But we do have some cultural resources to draw on. Go to a church and try reading aloud: “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus spent a lot of time contradicting that instinctive individualism. Maybe some of us could be persuaded to listen.

Imagine — combining our resources to relieve suffering and to open up dead-ends of poverty and hopelessness. Imagine knowing that our fate is each other.

Imagine — knowing that our fate also swims with the salmon and grows with the trees.

Imagine living beyond yourself — finding that thing you’re good at and in love with, even if it doesn’t pay so well. That would be like coming back to life, wouldn’t it? It would be like grace.

Imagine.

David Oates is the author of City Limits: Walking Portland’s Boundary. He can be reached at david_d_oates@yahoo.com.